My own convictions as to the efficacy of voluntary processes stem out of experiences in two wars. In World War I, Herbert Hoover, relying upon good leadership to prevent shortages, gave a convincing demonstration of what the American people can do voluntarily in such an emergency. In World War II, at the very moment when my company was being frustrated at every turn by arbitrary controls on men, money, machines, and materials, I acted as chairman of the Connecticut State War Finance Committee and saw the people rally to the brilliant leadership of two able young men in the Treasury Department, Ted Gamble and Bob Coyne, who raised billions of dollars that would never have been forthcoming under any compulsion. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT Off the Beam The German attack on Russia immediately converted a lot of former pacifists into bloodthirsty warmongers. With that everybody began trying to get into the act. We, who had once been crucified for warmongering, now found ourselves charged with “too little and too late.” The war cry now became “unconditional surrender,” a phrase that had a hollow ring to men who had watched Woodrow Wilson end World War I with his “Fourteen Points” by dividing the German people and the German Kaiser. In this country everybody became overnight an expert on war production and a critic of the professionals. The professionals, unfortunately, must always bear the responsibility for their actions, while their critics can and do speak with the advantage of irresponsibility. The newspapers now began to ballyhoo the “Reuther plan” as the answer to everything and news commentators belabored the ether with a cacophony of approval. From his office in the War Production Board, Bill Knudsen called us on the telephone. “You know this fellow Reuther?” he inquired, pronouncing the name as if it spelled Rooter. Yes, we knew about Reuther from the headlines. With his usual flair for publicity, he had crashed the front pages with the bright idea of putting all the machine tools of the automotive industry, now laying off men to convert to war production, into construction of airplanes under the mass-production principle. To an expert like Reuther, the idea of buying new machinery just to build airplane engines smacked of another grab by the bosses. Its reaction on Bill Knudsen had prompted this call for help. “Well,” he said, with that delightful Danish accent, “what are we going to do about him?” Fred Rentschler thought a moment. “Send him up here,” he replied. “We’ll take care of him.”